Weekly Roundup: Friday 25th January

Friday 25th January, 2019 6:51PM

As the humongous lineup for Auckland's Laneway Festival 2019 loomed ever closer, like a moth to Albert Park's lamp, we gazed through the mists of our musical crystal ball to see what local live events were on the horizon. We were thrilled to reveal multi-talented Brooklyn songwriter and actor Sharon Van Etten is returning to Aotearoa this June, for a special headline show with full band at Auckland's The Powerstation! As hugely exciting as that news is, that's not all to look forward to — our very own celebrated tunesmith Lawrence Arabia is wrapping up his year-long Singles Club project in style with an album release nationwide tour in April, Australian pub-punks The Chats are adding an extra Auckland show to their red hot summer tour of Aotearoa, Taranaki punk legends Sticky Filth are joining Seattle shit-kickers Supersuckers for their forthcoming North Island shows, and raunchy US rap queen Brooke Candy is returning to Aotearoa in February for a two date follow up to her already legendary Whammy Bar show in December.

New Zealand metal maniacs were in hog heaven this week - Scandinavian extreme metal masters At The Gates and The Haunted are bringing their Swedish Slaughter tour to Aotearoa this Autumn, California cosmic riffmeisters Earthless will be supported by local psych lords Ounce and Transistor for their upcoming North island tour, Auckland's Full Noise Festival revealed a head-hammering lineup of local sonic terrorists for March's two day, all ages event, and mind-expanding Melburnians Holy Serpent are teaming up with local psych-rock duo Earth Tongue to blaze a trail across the North Island in March.

Our Caught Live video for the week features Japanese-American songwriter Mitski, who is swinging into Auckland for Laneway Festival 2019, which if last year was anything to go by should be a roaster of a day. Mitski was famously praised by Iggy Pop as "probably the most advanced American songwriter that I know,” her latest record Be The Cowboy has been widely hailed as one of 2018's best. You can get even more hyped for Mitski's Monday performance (on the Princes Street stage from 5.00pm, to be precise) with just-released footage of the artist playing her new album's breakout single 'Nobody' live in the storied studios of Seattle's KEXP...